Archive for April, 2008

Prices of Treasury coupon securities have surged following the FOMC announcement as participants took solace from the absence of explicit language signalling a pause and noted that there is a paticularly long (2 months ) interergnum between meetings. So it will be a while before they have a chance to ...

The Federal Reserve released a statement at the conclusion of the FOMC meeting and as widely expected reduced the Federal Funds rate by 25 basis points to 2 percent. The statement cites the weakness in the economy and the various forces acting in concert to restrain growth. The statement specifically ...

A former colleague who is a paid up subscriber to the blog questions my assertion that the year bill auction will be $15 billion. He makes the very valid point that at just $15 billion the central banks would hoover in the entire issue and the new instrument would be ...

The world is now waiting for the Federal Reserve announcement at 215PM New York time. Prices of benchmark Treasury paper have barely budged. MBS spreads are unchanged in 30 year space and are a little tighter in 15 year space. There has actually been some cash market buying in corporates ...

The Treasury announced that it will resume auctioning one year bills on June 3. TheTreasury had consigned the year bill to the junk bin of financial history back in 2001 when forecasts had suggested that the govenrment securities market would disappear. I just spoke with a Treasury bill trader who ...

The GDP number does not add a whole lot to our store of knowledge about the state of the economy. Consumption is trending lower and investment spending is rank. Inventory increases and exports saved the economy from dipping below zero.
The current quarter should be slightly lower as the inventory increase ...

Prices of Treasury coupon securities have posted modest gains in overnight trading. The yield on the benchmark 2 year note has slipped 3 basis points to 2.32 percent. The yield on the 5 year note has dropped 2 basis points to 3.08 percent. The yields on the benchmark 10 year ...

Prices of Treasury coupon securities gyrated about in a narrow range today as market participants jockeyed positions ahead of a veritable deluge of information tomorrow. As I noted in a prior posting there was some active buying out the curve in the late morning and midday but a recovery in ...

Corporate bonds began the day with a weak tone as they opened a couple of basis ponts wider. One former colleague and current afficionado of that market noted that this was only the second or third day in the last three weeks on which spreads opened wider. Spreads have since ...